Love You Dead

85 Wednesday 11 March

‘Boss, something of significance to report!’ Batchelor said. ‘I think we may have found Tooth.’

‘Yes?’

‘Last Friday, there was a report of a man in collision with two cyclists close to Brighton Pier. He was taken unconscious to the Royal Sussex County Hospital. His US driving licence identified him as John Daniels, with an address in New York City. And there was a bar receipt from the Waterfront Hotel in his wallet.’

‘Jesus!’

‘I sent two officers to the hospital but he’s gone — seems to have discharged himself, sometime during this morning. But the hospital says he has severe bruising to both his legs and would be limping significantly. Someone’s going to have noticed him.’

‘Is this a genuine injury or a phoney one like Crisp’s, Guy?’

‘I haven’t checked that, boss, but I assume that the hospital wouldn’t have said so if it wasn’t the case.’

‘Yep, well you know my views on assumptions,’ Grace retorted.

‘I’ll get someone to double-check.’

‘Good. Have you contacted the hotel?’

‘Yes, they don’t have any guest by the name of Daniels registered. Nor Hinton.’

‘Bizarrely, I think I may have seen Tooth heading up New England Road in a Streamline taxi, twenty minutes ago,’ Grace said.

‘Seems an odd route from the Sussex County Hospital, wherever he was going,’ Batchelor said.

‘I could have been mistaken. Can you get on to Streamline and ask them for details of all pick-ups from the hospital this morning? All of them have CCTV in their cars now. Also can you see if there’s a n update on possible sightings from our message to Streamline earlier?’

‘Right away, sir.’

‘OK, good work, Guy. And can you arrange an accommodation check in the city for Daniels, Hinton, or any single American males

— but keep it low-key for now.’

As soon as he ended the call, Grace phoned Lanigan. He got his voicemail and left a message. ‘Pat, it’s Roy in Brighton. You said John Daniels was one of the aliases of our pal, Mr Tooth, and there’s Mike Hinton also. Can you let me have any others? I need to know very urgently.’

He hung up and then sat and thought. Had it been Tooth in hospital? Had it been him in the back of the taxi? If he had just left the Royal Sussex County Hospital, what was he doing at the north end of the city? New England Road was a route many people who came south into the city on London Road took to get to the beaches, or the western side of the city. Why would Tooth have gone north only to head south again? That route didn’t make any sense. Unless he was trying to shake someone off his tail.

Or be deliberately confusing.